The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-05-21
A CHRISTIAN LIFE.
REV. JOHN G. ADAMS, D. D.

A Sons Tribute to Father-Sermon in ST
Pauls Church, Chicago, May Is, by Rev.
Coleman Adams.
| l'How beautiful upon the mountains are th
feet of him that bringeth good tidings tina
publisheth peace that bringeth good tiding
OF good, that puhisheth salvation: that saitl
unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!' Isaiah.l
1t is one of the solemn privileges which
death accords to the living, that it per
mits us that freedom of speech about oul
friends which we never feel quite free tc
exercise while they are still with us. We
are abashed in their presence and do moi
dare to say the things we feel the most
But the same event that releases them
frees our thoughts also, and permits these
to rise to our lips in the glad utterance
OF loving judgment. 1t is permitted me
to-day thus to speak of one whose praise,
always in my heart, can now come freely
from my lips. The restraint of his earthly
presence is no longer upon me. And
whatever son may say of father of
whom he was never anything but fond
and proud, would like to say to-day of
my father.
You will not ask any excuses at my
hands for making his life and his charac-
ter my theme to-day. Apart from every
consideration of personal affection, the
service he has rendered to the Univers-
alist church, in an unbroken ministry of
more than fifty years, would call for a
proper tribute. And though he was per-
sonally known to but few of you, his
record in the church is known of all.
And there is noble lesson, worthy Of
any Christians study and admiration, in
the life that he led and the character
which, with the help Of the Holy Spirit,
he developed during the years of his
earthly sojourn. A Christians life how
ever humble and retiring, has always
something about it SO disting guished
and so sacred as to make it fit study for
other Christians. And when such char
acter rises into conspicuous goodness,
strength beyond the common proportion
qualities of force and of affection far in
excess of what is given to most men, it is
all the more duty to turn to it, when
death has revealed and glorifed it, not
only to bring tribute Of honor, but to
try and find the secret of this one more
life which has revealed God and his
divine workings In this world.
| have no wish to speak day Of the
Sea5wara liEs sag PERSONA Sz ss.ts' u
father; partly because it is so unimpres-
sive, and partly because it is so sacred.
In one view it is very trivial thing to
say of man that he was born in such
and such place, and lived here and
there, and did now one kind of work and
then another. And if this life story were
to be told in these terms it would be a
very quiet and uneventful history, and
would give no explanation of the noble
and symmetrical character which emerged
from these quiet and ordinary surround
ings. And to touch upon the relation
and sustained his spirit would be to
transgress the bounds of delicacy. No
man ever lived more richly and COM
pletely in the personal and domestic re-
lationships than my father; and it was
through them that his heart was kept
fresh in the vigor of continuous youth,
The results of his being, of the environ
ment out of which he came, and of the
personal history which was known only
to those nearest to him, these are the real
and valuable outcome of the three quar-.
ters of century which he spent on this
earth. No matter how many sermons he
wrote; how many parishes he had in
charge; how many funerals and how
many marriages he could count. That
was only the husk of his life, and the
kernel is SO far beyond all this it were
better to go at once for that.
/ would not seem to underyalue the
work he did in the church. That was
honorable and important. He was one of
the men who seem divinely ordained and
called to the ministry. And when he
turned from the trade which he learned
in New Hampshire town, to study for
the ministry, If was the inevitable yield
ing of his nature to the gravitation of nat
ural endowments. He was born to be a
preacher. And the light of the truth which
in those days none but brave men and wo.
men dared to follow,w when once it had fal.
len upon his eyes, revealed to him mis-
sion for himself which he was bound to
undertake. He was so full of the truth
of the gospel OF the universal love that he
could not keep silence. He could have
said with the apostle: Necessity is laid
upon me, and woe is me if I preach not
the Gospel" In his early ministry he
was the near and intimate friend of men
whose names have stood foremost in our
ministry Whittemore and Ballou, Thom-
as and Thayer, Chaplin and Starr King
who were all drawn to him by his fresh
and ardent spirit, and by the fervent
vigor with which he stood in advocacy of
Universalism. He always treasured the
memory Of those associations of his earlier
years with peculiar fondness; and the
education and training which he had
missed in his youth was in part supplied
out OF the intercourse he enjoyed with
these strong and earnest souls. His pas
torates were always marked by positive